


Training Wheels

by childofthevoid (Pdeter_Pdarker)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: All Gays Go To Heaven, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Dean is a massive colossal fucking dumbass, Fix-It, Introspection, M/M, Post-Episode: s15e20 Carry On, bisexuals against tetanus shots 2020, cas is NOT in himbo limbo, ending my writing hiatus of almost two years for spn?? didnt see that one coming, enjoy my brainrot i hate it out here, i came back to supernatural after five years just for that shitshow, i have literally slept four hours in the last two days, i work in six fucking hours, i work in six hours, just kidding please get vaccinated my bisexual babes, kachow, the impala is not??? in??? turbo heaven???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:06:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27641144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pdeter_Pdarker/pseuds/childofthevoid
Summary: Just giving Dean and Cas a happy ending in heaven because it's what the gays deserve after fifteen years of that utter bullshit." It was twelve years later, four thousand three hundred and eighty-four days when his very existence started to tether at the seams. An existence precariously plucked apart from perdition as if by an act of a God they knew well didn’t exist. Busted lights in the dark of night muttered words, “I gripped you tight.” "
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 3
Kudos: 39





	Training Wheels

Dean Winchester never learned how to ride a bike. By the time he was six years old, he could load and unload a shotgun in his sleep. Gauge, barrel and breech level were so ingrained in his brain they were akin to a second language. Or maybe even a native language; he had never done well in English. Whilst all his fleeting classmates were teetering vicariously on two wheels atop pavement radiating with the heat of July, Dean Winchester spent his time enclosed by four walls of a cheap motel, feeding his brother refried beans. Practicing steps like they were second nature. Open chamber, load, shells, check gauge and repeat. More accustomed to fingers brushing over the barrel of a gun than the handle of a bike. 

Dean Winchester was a creature of habit, thanks most impart to a father consumed by grief and a strict regimen. It was survival; habit became necessary. To deviate from it was to welcome the unknown. An unknown that came in the form of nightmares far more terrifying than any dream could fathom. An unknown closely followed by loss, by emptiness, by the scars on his heart that had created an impenetrable wall of voided emotions, too many to name. Or maybe he didn’t want to name them. 

Habit had become a safeguard around his weary soul. A sense of control against the demons that still made his blood curdle at night. To have a habit was to have familiarity. To have a habit was to have a hand on the wheel of the driver’s seat of life. 

So no, Dean Winchester never learned how to ride a bike, never even wanted to. Though sometimes, when he couldn’t sleep, listening to the drone of Sam’s snores from the bed beside him, he imagined what it might be like. What it might be like to break his habits, to have the freedom to explore the unknown just like the other kids his age. 

He thought it maybe, just maybe, it would feel like flying. 

As time went on, more complexities were added to Dean’s habitual existence. At fifteen he swiped a mickey of whiskey from underneath his dad’s mattress in the dead of night. Static curiosity rang at his shaking fingertips as he tipped the bottle back allowing liquid pyre to pour into his guts, the resonating heat charring everything it came in contact with along the way. The world blurred and frayed at the edges as the alcohol set in, turning his insides obsidian. 

Dean’s world was less formidable that night. He was swept up in a dizzying disconnect and laid to rest somewhere between the contradicting burden of his reality and the desire to chase after the dregs of his youth. A youth that was sifting through his fingers as quickly as the powdered sugar falling to the ground as he stifled giggles into a pillow as late-night television hummed in front of him, a box of doughnuts haphazardly opened beside him. Even the bitterness that settled on the back of his tongue as his body rejected too much to drink too fast tasted less foul than the sharp strike of sobriety the following morning. 

At sixteen, Dean had his first kiss. 

It was all clashing teeth and shaking hands, tentative movements brought about from teenage lust. It was nervous energy, perfectly awkward and exhilarating at the same time. His world spun every time their lips brushed. Hands tingling from where they lay floundering at his sides, unsure how to navigate new territory. He was breathless and could feel his face heated as he pulled back to catch his breath. A high that lasted him through until inevitably, it was time to leave. Leave her behind, leave behind the beginnings of something familiar.

They say it takes sixty-six days to form a habit. By the time Dean Winchester was seventeen years old, his habitual existence was a concoction mixed up of one part hunting and two parts beer and women.

It was twelve years later, four thousand three hundred and eighty-four days when his very existence started to tether at the seams. An existence precariously plucked apart from perdition as if by an act of a God they knew well didn’t exist. Busted lights in the dark of night muttered words, “I gripped you tight.”

Dean Winchester’s reckoning came in the form of a feathery assed man, eyes as limitless as the sea and brain the size of a pea.

Habits were not meant to be broken, a comfort zone not something to be breached. Dean had boundaries, a foundation that had been laid solid by the time he was seventeen. All he knew was all he was, all he had been, all he would be. Dean’s life, defined by habits. Given they were chaotic, erratic, and borderline absurd, they were not to be shaken. 

Hunting was in his blood, who he was raised to be. A killer through and through. Despte the lifestyle that accompanied it was there was a familiarity that remained. Four walls and a mattress about as comfortable as a plank was more of a homestead than the idea of any permanence. People came and they went, Sammy came and went. He’d lost so many precious things, precious people in his life. It was a certainty, part of the routine, the habit. He’d always lose.

With that knowledge came grief too powerful to name. It was all-consuming, pushed him six feet further down into a hole he’d been buried under from the time he was four years old. Grief only numbed by the cool metal of a flask between his lips or slicked skin underneath his palms, sweat coursing down his face between panting breath, sometimes a mixture of the two.

It was who he was to the foibles of his being, live fast die young. Dean Winchester was not cut out for the white picket fence apple pie life. 

That didn’t mean he sometimes didn’t wonder what it might be like to have it.

“I love you.”

Then nothing. 

The day Cas was ripped from him for the final time was a death sentence, a piece of him taken brutally and forcefully away. 

Too many words, too fast, too much, and he was gone. Like nothing, like everything, like a tsunami crashing into the shoreline and dragging back with it all the broken pieces of a life that was just starting to make sense. 

It did make sense. 

Cas’ words hitting him at once, what they meant, what they really meant. 

It hadn’t happened fast, so slow in fact that Dean hadn’t even realized it was happening. But he was sure, piece by piece, bit by bit, Castiel had changed him. Everything he was, everything he had been, everything he would be. 

Dean had never thought about falling in love, about a picture-perfect ending; his life was far too messy for the display case. Filled with blood, sweat, tears, and booze. A self-fulfilling prophecy he was sure to carry to the grave. 

Or so he thought. 

It was simple really, maybe he had been looking at life the wrong way, the picture too close, studying every minuscule ugly detail. Picking them apart until there was nothing left until he had nothing left. 

Even when he was spent, with nothing left. Wasted to the abyss of a hunt gone wrong, of another life lost, Cas was there. He was there with a gruff voice, a dry remark and eyes so sincere he couldn’t help but trust them. Picking him up from rock bottom and building him back up again. 

Cas was there, a certainty. He’d leave, everybody did, but he always came back. Always. 

It was unclear for Dean when it started. When Cas’s dry remarks went from annoying to endearing. When hands gripped together from lifting another from the ground lingered a little too long. When it started making his heart skip a beat and his stomach flutter to his throat. When a hug felt more like a lifeline than a passing moment.

In retrospect, their friendship had morphed, changed into something more complicated yet so perfectly simple.

Cas had taken him by the hand, guided it with his own, paintbrush in tow. Cas had shown him how to paint, splashes of colour across the canvas of his life. Gently breaking the harsh strokes of his past, replacing them with gentle, more vibrant colours. Eventually, when he was able to hold his own, Cas was there, beside him, strokes intertwining with his. It didn’t make sense to him, in those moments, too close to understand the full picture, moving too fast to care. 

Now with Cas gone, it was glaringly obvious.

A painting so simple that it made no sense, that it made perfect sense. 

Everything that Dean had done in the past ten years Cas was there to compliment, moving in perfect tandem with him, pushing him when necessary. He had shown Dean patience, kindness, perseverance that glowed brighter than his grace. A childlike wonder that never faded even when the universe was against them. He believed in humanity, in Dean, in the goodness of the world. Something Dean had never seen in himself. 

Cas taught him how to love, how to learn, grow, change. 

Dean had never thought about falling in love, had never wanted to fall in love. 

But maybe falling in love wasn’t in the having, it was in the being. 

He didn’t need to fall in love, he already was in love. 

It was perfectly simple, loving Cas. It was a fact, something that he had known for years. It was as easy as breathing. With every inhale and exhale, just as certainly as his heart pumped hunter blood with every beat it also pulsed with love. 

Dean believed Cas, believed what he had said about him, Cas had shown him that love didn’t have to be difficult, it could be simple, easy. Loving himself could be simple and easy, loving Cas was that simple and easy. 

Loving Cas wasn’t a grandeur gesture of loud proclamations and expensive items. It was minute and full of quiet energy, of understanding, of forgiveness. 

Loving Cas was movie nights in the bunker, worn t-shirts peppered in holes, legs clad in sweatpants, pressed closer together than strictly necessary though neither making any indication of pulling away. It was Sam, curled in a chair tucked away in the corner, face aglow with the backlight of a laptop screen, pointedly not commenting on Cas’s head dropping to Dean’s chest. Smirking to himself when their gentle snores filled the room, turning off the tv and covering them with a blanket, knowing that come morning the kitchen would be palpable with words unspoken. But for the night, they had each other, a tranquil peace, as the dust settled to the floor dancing in the glow of the moon. Dean never slept better than when Cas was there beside him. 

Loving Cas was an apology, words of forgiveness slipping off of his tongue like venom being purged from his system. Words that held more conviction than he realized. It was a confession, it was a realization of sorts, his walls broken down, a piece of him he tried so desperately to lock away exposed and vulnerable at Cas’s disposal. 

Dean was not afraid.

Without even realizing it, Dean Winchester had fallen. 

It was falling and flying and flailing all at once as his mind reeled to keep up with his racing thoughts. 

Collapsed against the wall, tears dancing down his cheeks, staring at the canvas of his life in full. 

A painting so beautiful, so nonsensical in the most perfect way. 

The canvas was filled with Cas. 

Dean Winchester never thought he would go to heaven. He had always assumed he’d go out guns blazing and wind up in the pits of hell, tortured for the rest of eternity. 

So, after he breathed his last, to say he was surprised when he woke up surrounded by overwhelming green and mountainous hills was an understatement, to say the least. 

It was beautiful, peaceful, tranquil. Everything he dared to imagine heaven would be in fleeting moments of his past. 

“Hello, Dean.”

His heart stopped; he was sure if he wasn’t already dead, hearing that voice would have sent him to heaven twice over. He turned unsteadily on his feet, his stomach swirling into a mixture of nervous euphoria he had never experienced before.

There, sitting on the porch of a perfectly constructed log cabin was Castiel, blue eyes piercing the veil straight into Dean’s soul. His hair was mussed, as though he’d run his hands through it impatiently. Waiting for something. 

Waiting for him, he belatedly realized. 

His legs booted into overdrive, barely managing the long strides to clear the space between him and Cas. Cas met him halfway, pulling each other into an embrace, hanging on like it was their lifeline. They stayed that way, Dean burrowing his head in the crook of Cas’s neck, body trembling as sobs were ripped from his throat. 

When he pulled back their eyes were red-rimmed and voices raw. 

“Cas you-” Dean took a gasping breath looking him up and down, hands never leaving from the grip they held on his arms. “You- I saw you, Cas. The empty. You were g… How?” He stuttered, mouth seizing to work. 

Cas gave him a half-smile back as more tears slipped from his eyes. “I know Dean, Jack he- Well, I’m not sure exactly, but,” He shrugged, his eyes steeled and sincere as Dean had ever seen them.  
“Is this real, Cas are you-” 

Cas smiled back at him, more genuine than Dean had ever seen, as though billions of years had been lifted off his shoulders. “Dean, I told you once, I will tell you again. We are real. Of course, we are real. Out of my entire existence, you, being with you, is the most real thing I have ever felt. I know that for absolute certainty.”

There was barely room for a breath before they pulled each other close, it was easy, simple. A fact of life, or the afterlife, Dean supposed.

Dean had never wanted to ride a bike, never wanted a happy ever after, never wanted anything but the thrill of the hunt, live fast and die at the hands of a gun. That was before, before a feathered ass had turned his world upside down. Broken every habit Dean had formed, every idea he had about himself. 

With Cas, he had never wanted anything more. 

Lips pressed against lips, broken only by desperate gasps for air in between. It was a prayer, a chant, communicating years of unspoken words. Hands gripped tight atop a familiar beige trench coat, cheeks coated in dew as tears slipped deftly from half-lidded eyes. Like it was all they had, all they were, all they would be.

“I love you too.”

It felt like flying.

**Author's Note:**

> I literally have no words I just need a super mega turbo nap. 
> 
> I don't know if this even makes sense but I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless! Feel free to scream in the comments I always enjoy hearing from the people that read my stuff it seriously makes my day!!
> 
> Come find me on twitter! @kidkasora
> 
> Good yard tetanus bi's and himbo limbo gays.


End file.
